The game of tennis involves serving, returning and volleying the ball with a variety of strokes. The service is an especially important aspect of the game because the serving player has a slight advantage over the receiving player. That player having the strongest serve often wins many points during a game.
While the service is one of the more important aspects of tennis, it is also one of the more difficult aspects of the game to learn and improve. The service requires coordination between tossing and ball overhead with one hand and striking the ball with a racket held in the other hand such that the ball is propelled over the net and into the service court of the opposing player. Ideally, the toss and stroke should be coordinated such that the apex of the toss corresponds to the position of the racket during the overhead stroke in order to achieve maximum power and angle of declination over the net. A good serve thus requires body coordination, control, power and timing.
Although the service can be practiced without the aid of a training device, this does not permit practice of the service stroke independent of the toss and vice versa. Tennis training devices have been developed heretofore; however, these devices are either unsuitable for practicing the service stroke or suffer from other difficulties. In some devices of the prior art, for example, the balls are tethered or constrained to stands such that poor indications are given of the flight paths of the balls. Other devices lob balls over the net at the player and are therefore more suitable for practicing returns rather than serves. The instructional device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,940,132 releasably suspends balls by means of a suction system which requires external power and is therefore relatively expensive and not readily portable. A need has thus arisen for an improved tennis training device which is particularly suited for developing the service stroke, but which can be used for practicing other strokes as well.